Neil and Jessica were at home, lighting the candles on their shrine for their ancestors. Just a normal day at home, the cleaning and the chores. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Like usual, the candles only burned for a few minutes before they were put out so that nobody could notice the smell of the burning incense. Pretty soon after the candles were burnt out, the sounds of someone fanning harshly began. Then the sound of a huge slam which meant that the shrine was being put away. In the house of Jessica and Neil, it was like this every day, maybe it wasn't ordinary to others but it was to them.
A little while later, Neil went to start on his homework while Jessica worked on the chores and things around the house. It was pretty peaceful in the house. The distance sound of sweeping and writing was all the sounds that could be heard. They've been living in that house for years. Nothing bad has happened yet, and they were sure nothing would for awhile.

Later on in the evening, Neil went online to the internet to check his Facebook and to talk to his friends. A few minutes later, Neil was talking to Paul, his best buddy when Paul started to urgently tell Neil something. “Neil! Neil! You have to check your profile! Someone just posted something on there and it's not pretty! Everyone's believing it too!” Paul messaged him. At the moment, Neil quickly went to his profile to see that someone had posted to his wall that he was 'A homo who lied to everyone because he is really a Buddhist. He has lied to all to you all.' When he read this, Neil was horrified. Who knew this? How many people know now? No one hated Neil, he was friendly to everyone and everyone was his friend. He couldn't think of anyone who knew about it or anyone who hated him this much.
Just as Neil was thinking over the issue, Jessica walked in to his room with a tray. “I have some tea and cookies I just made! Neil, you want some?” She said, offering him the tray. Neil was surprised for Jessica just walking into his room without knocking. He then replied, “No, no thanks, I don't want anything right now.” He said in a shaky voice. Jessica immediately knew something was wrong and pushed Neil away from his computer. Just when she finished reading, she froze. “Oh God, what did you do? What did you do?” She asked Neil. “I don't know! I really don't!” He had replied. They were just simply shocked.

Just then, someone knocked on the door. “Hello? We need to perform a search!” A man's voice echoed from behind the front door. Neil and Jessica were shocked and scared right when the man's voice came out. He sounded very much like a big man, probably very tall and scary too. They really didn't know what to do yet, they were just scared out of their minds. But someone had to open the door, but who?
After a few minutes and a lot of knocking harshly on the front door, Jessica finally went to open the door. Just as the man was saying, “Open up! Or else we'll knock and door down now!” she opened it. He was a rather short man actually, plump and fat too. He was really quite handsome but the voice that came out of him was quite the opposite. It was gruff and harsh sounding, it didn't match the way he looked one bit. He walked into the room holding a paper. “We have a paper that was filed for a search warrant," he said, "We've heard you have a Buddhists shrine here which is not allowed.” Two threatening men stood behind him. These men then started going around the house searching for the shrine. They were loud and it sounded like criminals breaking into a house. They continued looking through the house until they finally found what they were looking for. The shrine was in the living room. The side of the stairs held a hidden door which led to the shrine. It was then taken away for evidence. The men then walked to the door while another man said, “We'll be seeing you two soon then, very soon.” Then, they all walked away with the shrine.

A few days after the ordeal, Neil and Jessica came home and Jessica picked up the mail from the mailbox. And there it was, the order letter to go to court. Again it was a huge shock but they had to go, their secret had been discovered, it wasn't fair if they didn't go since they've hidden it for so long. They both decided to go and find out what was the ending for them.









- Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

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Sarah Bishop -

By Scott O' Dell

http://kannakurumi.glogster.com/sarahbishop-isaacmorton/